Police officer recalls surviving tornado

More than a week after a tornado struck southern Oklahoma, a fifth-grader still has the best story on the playground for her friends.

Keith Howard

More than a week after a tornado struck southern Oklahoma, a fifth-grader still has the best story on the playground for her friends.

Eleven-year-old Harley Bright has been telling her friends, “how my dad was sucked up in a tornado,” she said over the phone Tuesday. “They asked how he was. He just had a scratch on his head and a scratch on his arm. They all thought he was lucky.”

Sgt. James Bright of the Lone Grove Police Department was on U.S. Highway 70 when the tornado ripped through the city. The officer had to pull over to the side of a road and curl under his jacket while his pickup was thrown around like a rag doll. Bright survived the storm with minor scrapes and bruises, but the 2005 pickup wasn’t so lucky.

The passenger side window remained intact. The remaining windows were smashed to bits, and the front windshield has foot-long scratches. Glass still decorates the floor of the pickup, and dents ranging from about 6 inches to 1 foot in diameter are on all sides of the vehicle.

After seeing the damage to the pickup, Harley remembers noticing, “There was grass inside and there was dirt in it,” she said.

Despite Bright’s wounds and a quick visit to the emergency room at Mercy Memorial Hospital in Ardmore, he went back on duty that night and worked until about 2 a.m. the next day.

“It was devastating for a lot of people out here. I was actually pretty fortunate that I wasn’t injured more than I was,” Bright said on Monday. “I couldn’t believe my truck was still on its wheels and not damaged more than it was.”

Bright still has his battle wounds. There are scrapes above his left eye and on his left arm and on his shoulder. Bright added that his family hasn’t said much of anything about his close brush with Mother Nature.

But daddy’s little girl still had a few words about the experience, which she thought was “scary” and afterward she was “a little mad” because her dad had to risk his life to help others after almost being killed.

“I think it was dumb, because he was hurt and he didn’t need to go back to work,” she said. “He should’ve been at home.”